Hasbro 2021 Remake: Public Unboxings ARE HERE!

[Kurgan]

The current HasbroPulse page says the Game System has "93 game cards" though they also list "turn order cards" (4) and "hero character cards" (4).

Let's see what that includes..

8 monster cards
12 hero spells (3 each of earth, air, fire and water)
12 dread spells
24 Treasure cards
24 Equipment cards (12 NA equipment cards + 2 more-bracers&handaxe + 2 more-holywater&potion of speed + extra copies of certain cards - 2 extra longswords, 2 extra battle axes, 2 extra crossbows, 1 extra helmet, 1 extra shield) - am I right about the number of dupes?
10 artifacts (from the NA)

Are the 4 special artifacts (Fortune's LongSword, Phantom Blade, Ring of Fortitude and Rod of Telekinesis) still in there or are any others missing?

[cornixt]

I also noticed some weirdness with the Haslab page as of today (March 3, 2023). Some time ago the page was taken down, and then brought back up, so I'm not sure if it was sitting there like this the whole time and I just didn't notice or if it's a more recent change, but look at this... as Liorlec rightly pointed out, the new numbers don't add up. Are they "placeholders" (as Blayze suggested)? Those numbers hadn't changed in a long time (yes, some orders got cancelled and refunded in the hours after the Haslab campaign ended, but they had a whole year between then and the actual release date to make any adjustments).. I find it hard to believe they over/undershot by really that much. I hope someone isn't trying to be sneaky and alter history there. Just saying someone at Avalon Hill/Hasbro needs to look at it, explain what's going on.

Those are screen grabs (only the red text is my own label):

Could you explain it a bit more? It looks like you stuck two screenshots together, but they are measuring two different things, the top is money and the bottom is number of people pledging, which presumably includes companies who bought dozens of copies as one pledge. How can you tell if they under/overshot?

[Kurgan]

It's hard to say but I was taking 1 backer = 1 buy (your point makes sense). If we treat backer as literally a customer (they could have bought hundreds of copies and that's only one "backer") I suppose. The thing is there was no limit placed on number of buys per backer during the HeroQuest campaign. HeroScape you could only back 5 per person (though what happens if you have two credit cards? per household?).

I just think it obscures what actually happened by converting it into this new format...

During HeroQuest's campaign you could buy the Heroic Tier for $99.99 or the Mythic Tier for $149.99. But in theory you could have bought dozens of each. All they recorded on the tracker was the amount of money raised (and the goal was $1 million, after which it would "be successfully backed" and go to production). The switch to "backers" was done years after the campaign ended, so it's a bit confusing. Speculation is that this was done as part of some automatic thing on the page and not an attempt to confuse everyone (even though it's doing that). What's wrong with showing exactly how much money was raised rather than making it look like they only got a fraction of (or many times) what they actually raised?

[Kurgan]

The current HasbroPulse page says the Game System has "93 game cards" though they also list "turn order cards" (4) and "hero character cards" (4).

Let's see what that includes..

8 monster cards
12 hero spells (3 each of earth, air, fire and water)
12 dread spells
24 Treasure cards
24 Equipment cards (12 NA equipment cards + 2 more-bracers&handaxe + 2 more-holywater&potion of speed + extra copies of certain cards - 2 extra longswords, 2 extra battle axes, 2 extra crossbows, 1 extra helmet, 1 extra shield) - am I right about the number of dupes?
10 artifacts (from the NA)

Are the 4 special artifacts (Fortune's LongSword, Phantom Blade, Ring of Fortitude and Rod of Telekinesis) still in there or are any others missing?

So addressing rumors that the "2nd retail version" with the transparent trays has missing content (in the English edition):

StrangeBus confirms that Fortune's LongSword and the Phantom Blade ARE included in the pack.
He's not sure about the Ring of Fortitude and Rod of Telekinesis (would have to go through the cards more carefully to be sure).

I'm also curious if the "dupes" of the various equipment cards present in the Pledge version are also there (Longsword, Battle Axe, Crossbow, Helmet & Shield all had extra copies in the 2021 version).

[Kurgan]

Confirmed rumors of the next year of expansions can be read about here!

[Kurgan]

One last detail about the 2022 "slim box" game system release. Confirmed (at GenCon) that the Helmet equipment card(s) now include the word "metal" (an identical card comes with Rise of the Dread Moon). This helps clear up an old mystery of the intention behind the Druid and Bard interactions with "metal."

Additionally the "may not be used by the Wizard" text was added to the HandAxe equipment card, again identical to how it was in Rise of the Dread Moon. This matches the usage in the EU edition where the weapon first appeared (it was not part of the 1990 NA edition).

With the upcoming release of the "Path of the Wandering Monk" hero collection (Jan 15, 2024; able to be pre-ordered on HasbroPulse for $14.99 by the way) I think that the debate about the Bard's armor bonus is a little easier to guess.

The character starts with no shield and no "metal" armor (defined now as Helmet, Plate, Chainmail) and no shield. He keeps the bonus +1 defend if he wears the Bracers (which are non-metal), but he loses the bonus if he does add any metal armor. So an early bonus (even though his card shows 2 defend dice, consider the monk says 1 defend die when it's really 2 for unarmed attacks).

Also we are predicting that Prophecy of Telor, Spirit Queen's Torment (and/or Against the Ogre Horde) will be announced, unboxed (by Rocket Beans, some youtubers from Germany who have done some HeroQuest play streams in the past) and pre-orders will start later that day (Oct 6, 2023). The Dread Veil Dice are opened up to Europe as well (formerly a GenCon giveaway can be pre-ordered and some confusion over the "dice rolling scroll" being out of stock in various places). Check elsewhere on the forum for those updates!

[Kurgan]

Update on Re-released Mythic Content 11/5/23:

Spirit Queen's Torment and Prophecy of Telor (both IN RETAIL) have official release dates of Nov 15, 2024, however a few people are getting them early (HeroQuestFans discord member Ribby got his yesterday and Oatmeal Lumps got his today). We have confirmed some details thanks to them which may be of interest:

First some bad news: Despite last minute rumors (fueled by Joe Mangianello's presence at the LUCCA convention in Italy) and speculation, Crypt of Perpetual Darkness is NOT part of these plans and there are still no official plans or confirmations that the "proprietary" content related to that final stretch goal for the Haslab campaign will ever come to Retail (unfortunately for the many who wanted them but missed out on the crowd-funding campaign three years ago). Also the Druid hero was noticably absent from the re-release info, despite it NOT being one of the proprietary pieces. As expected, no re-release was mentioned as planned for the Sir Ragnar, "Mentor," or Witchlord minis (but also not for the sex swapped Elf, Dwarf, Wizard or Barbarian included with the Heroic tier three years ago).

But onto the good news!

Despite early (digitally rendered) images...

Rapier (SQT, Equipment Card) is 250 gold (same price as in Mythic tier, the "450" in digital promo images was an error)
Wand (PoT, Equipment Card) is 125 gold and uses the Mythic artwork once more (earlier promotional images showed it raised to 200 gold and a dupe of the Wand of Magic artifact art)

"Shadows Dark Gray" errata has been fixed (closed off areas representing solid rock are supposed to be grayed out in the quest maps, this was a common omission for SQT in the Mythic set). However the coloration of these rooms is now more of an orange/brown and a light gray color is used for the grid representing the corridors and white for rooms (whereas the whiter color was used for all non-solid rock areas before... and some errors were not shaded in by accident).

At least one spear trap has been replaced by a furniture trap.

Some notes have been clarified (with the use of inset boxes, use of bold, etc).

Some more text has been added to the "lore" sections of the Quest books (full details not yet known, spoilers of course). Extra clarification text seems to have been added to the opening pages of each book as well.

Warlock is NOT incorporated into the rules in any official way as the Bard was, as far as we have heard.

All cards have their text reformatted and/or have been re-worded, but the mechanics have not changed for anything, other than Potion of Restoration (1 Body, 1 Mind point) has been lowered from 500 to 300 gold in price (just like the version of this potion found in Rise of the Dread Moon).

PoT had a regular Potion of Healing (1d6) added to the Alchemist Shop for 500 gold, with the same price as Rise of the Dread Moon (in fact, if you want to see how the cards are re-worded in these two packs, look at the cards found in ROTDM).

All Spell Scrolls now add "May be used by any hero" at the bottom which was missing from all Remake spell scrolls before (though questbooks previously explained they could be used by any hero, not just spellcasters).

"Heroic Red" figures (Bard, Warlock and "Demonform" reg Gargoyle) now have some shimmery/sparkly element added to them, which I suppose was done to bring out more detail in the light when in their unpainted state.

Despite speculation (including by me), no new tiles and no new furniture (not even doors) have been added to the retail SQT/PoT. Probably stylistically they would call upon the wooden exit and iron entrance doors of KK or ROTWL but you could use any closed door for this and just re-use as needed.

As expected, you are not required to use the new "translucent color" monsters in these quests. An orc is still an orc, etc. but it's for aesthetic enhancement if you wish.

The quality of the sculpts for these characters appears the same, although the "sparkly" quality seems to bring out more of the detail for some viewers just as the translucent quality of the alternate colored monster figures seems to obscure that detail for others. As with other packs, some have already made plans to paint them...

There is only one female "Dread Warrior" in each pack. The female "Dread Sorcerer" appears in only one pack. One pack has one female (?) Abomination while the other has two. So if you combine both packs you will end up with MORE distribution of most monsters than buyers of the Mythic tier haslab version would have (one extra Abomination, double the number of alt skeletons, zombies, mummies, orcs, goblins). They'd also have double the number of alt Gargoyles but the red Gargoyle is clearly intended as an optional aesthetic enhancement to use when the Warlock goes into "demonform" (the original rules don't require any miniature swapping but it's there if you want it). Otherwise this could be used as a second alt Gargoyle since there's also a translucent one.

Both sets have 6 alt colored combat dice in the translucent color (same distribution of symbols as other official dice)

PoT: Bard hero, two Abominations and the Dread Sorceress in translucent Green. 13 quests in the book. 15 total plastic minis.
SQT: Warlock and two Gargoyles (one red, one translucent orange). only one Abomination (translucent orange). 14 quests in the book. 15 total plastic minis.

Both are priced at $33.99 via HasbroPulse (minus shipping; a similar pricepoint to KK/ROTWL on the same site these days which is appropriate since the boxes are the same size as those expansions) but prices may vary once they hit other online retailers (and FLGS) in 2024. Listings have appeared (and gone "temporarily out of stock") on Amazon US in the past few days. It seems if other stores are selling them at this time it must be in very limited quantity. But they have repeatedly stressed that these (like the Dread Veil Dice) are NOT limited or exclusive runs. When stock runs out, they will get more. Like the previous releases (minus the original Guardian Knight) they are here to stay as long as they sell!

Ribby has a REMARKABLE rundown of the changes from the Mythic one (in terms of errata fixed) here and a neat video unboxing as well.

[Kurgan]

Now lots of people are getting SQT/POT deliveries... HasbroPulse has officially lapped itself, as they still show "pre-order" and "ship date approximately Nov 17th" for these expansions and yet people are getting them early! Meanwhile other shops like Amazon have taken down their listings (waiting for 2024).

[SirRick]

Now lots of people are getting SQT/POT deliveries... HasbroPulse has officially lapped itself, as they still show "pre-order" and "ship date approximately Nov 17th" for these expansions and yet people are getting them early! Meanwhile other shops like Amazon have taken down their listings (waiting for 2024).

Yeah, I appeared a couple days ago. I didn’t get a chance to look at them yet.

[Kurgan]

This is perhaps old news, but the 2021 Character Sheet PDF has been available on Hasbro Consumer Care for awhile. See here. Pity it's not a little higher resolution, but it's adequate if you want to print off a few more!